Wolfe and Dorothy
by R. Daneel Olivaw
Summary: I wrote this as a sequel to something another author wrote. I have recently decided to put up what I have, and continue this story. Set in the TSCC verse, with an OC and a crossover character.
1. Chapter 1

**Woolgathering**

Some of the worst weather Serrano Point has ever seen. Wind bad enough to blow a com dish off its tower. Someone had to fix it, and the brass called out tech squad to go get it done. Since tech squad today consisted of only one guy, tech specialist Wolfe got the short end.

Dorthy had offered to go out there. As soon as she heard about it, the first thing she said was "I'll go. I will experience no discomfort from the rain, and I have enough mass that the wind will have little effect."

Wolfe knew it was really his job, and if anyone knew that he was getting the metal to do it, his ass may end up in a sling. Still, after having worked with her for a few short weeks, he knew she was more capable of the job than he was. Her desire to be helpful seemed genuine, and in his heart he believed it.

Now he stood out under a portico while she climbed the tower. He was still getting a little wet and the wind was cold, but it wasn't as bad as where she was. He didn't really have anything to do here, but he felt that he had to be involved. He jammed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the cold. He closes his eyes for a bit.

He worries lately about the little metal that has been assigned to him. She is innocuous, even cute; it is hard to think of her as a product of skynet. That's the big problem, it's too easy to think of her as easygoing, helpful, or even as a friend. If she really is infiltrating, he may be an easy target, so he worries.

With his eyes still closed, he catches a faint scent that he just can't place, something he hasn't smelled in a long time. He falls back into memory, caves in to a déjà vu. A small boy stands with a hot drink in his hand. Wool mittens are drying on a big iron radiator. The boy stands in front of it, the heat radiating through him, the smell of his damp wool mittens, the sense that he is inside, safe, warm. Wolfe can't believe he ever felt that way, today paranoia keeps you alive.

He holds the memory as long as he can, warmth, safe, home. He realizes that he actually is warm, and the smell of damp wool is real. He opens his eyes.

She is standing in front of him, steam rising from her black dress. She has somehow raised her inner temperature and is drying herself off. She is looking at him with that serene stare, so peaceful. He can't help himself, the feeling of the memory blends in with the moment, her warmth, and her radiance.

"Where did you go Stephen Wolfe?" she asks in that flat calm little voice of hers.

"Ha, I was just woolgathering!" He replies. "All set?"

"Yes. I told you it wouldn't be that hard."

With a heavy toolbox in each hand, she walks gracefully down the corridor as if she were bringing tea to the commander.

Watching her he thinks, 'God help me, if she really is infiltrating, I am a dead man'.

Fin


	2. Chapter 2

[ Apologies, this should have been loaded first, ahead of Wool, but it would have been out of order anyway. This is a prequel to Lyaksandra's The Faint Hearted need Not Apply, which is the prequel to all other Wolfe and Dorothy stories that will appear hear.]

He hung his field jacket on the door and walked over to the pile of stuff that just got delivered. His superior, Tech Specialist Six Gurvitz was already starting to tag and sort the junk piled up around him.

Wolfe rolled up his sleeves as he approached. "Ok mighty Guru, what did we get in this batch?"

Gurvitz looked up from the salvage report and nodded to Wolfe." Glad you're here El Lobo. I got waaaay too much to do without sorting through this dreck. Let's split this up and get it off the floor ASAP."

Wolfe raised an eyebrow "Sounds like a plan but...the question still stands. What's in the chute?"

Gurvitz looked back at the sheet. "Okay... we got some surveillance drones, some small free-range construction bots, and some big multiport brains that may have been destined as factory supervisors, a handful of charred 600 chips from the grunts, some complex analog converters and a droid. Why they keep bringing us burned brains from those autodrones I couldn't say, we've scanned hundreds of them and there's never anything new."

Wolfe switched eyebrows. "We got a droid? A biped? How did that not get decapped, and go through techcom first? We haven't gotten complete T-models here since the time we lost Marvin. Is it deac?"

"Hell, Lobo, look at it. It looks like a store mannequin from a goth boutique." he glanced at the sheet again "Also it has no chip port, and it isn't even a skin job. They found it in with the maintenance bots in a smelting plant. The grunts cooked everything that moved, but this was still in the box."

Wolfe's gaze followed Gurvitz nod, to a crate that had been propped against the wall and opened. Inside was a humanoid figure that was every bit as innocuous looking as Gurvitz had implied. The skin was a synthetic, maybe skintex and the bob of red hair looked like it could be rayon. It was wearing a dark dress with black tights and shoes, like some kind of uniform for a domestic or maybe a student. The face was doll like, with large eyes, a pert nose and a small mouth. It was fashioned to appear as a young woman of an age in the late teens to early twenties.

Wolfe stepped over to look closer and let out a snort of derision."Pfft, this thing looks prewar. Seriously, what is this, one of those Japanese girlfriend dolls?"

"Well, mister curious, it looks like that's gonna be for you to find out. You get the fembot, the factory brains and the DACs. I'll take the higher security military stuff."

"I notice the 'higher security stuff' happens to be the no brainer stuff, and also the stuff that's already loaded onto carts."

Gurvitz chuckled as he pushed a wheeled cart down the corridor. "RHIP Stephen, RHIP!"

Wolfe watched him go thinking, 'If we weren't shorthanded I'd kill him', but he grinned as he thought it. Wolfe was actually quite eager to jump into a new project with both feet. He was never the type to avoid a chore, but lately he had become a complete workaholic. There was never any question why, staying busy kept your mind off the world going to hell around you. And he, like so many of the others that were left, didn't want to contemplate some of the people and things he would never see again.

He began inspecting the droid first, it being the most uncommon item on his agenda. He touched the skin, and was surprised to find it had a fairly realistic feel to it. It definitely wasn't skintex, the rubbery covering that skynet used on its t600 models. He lifted an arm and dropped it. Not rigid like a deactivated terminator, more like someone asleep. The eyes were closed, so he pried one lid up to have a look at it. It was large dark and glassy, with no white showing. An odd alien look, considering that someone had gone to the trouble of making it appear cute otherwise.

He decided to confirm that were no external chip ports like the report said. Field techs tended to be a little more ham fisted than their in house counterparts. Even though this thing didn't seem like a skynet terminator model, he decided to eliminate the common placement points it would use first. He ran his fingers through the red rayon hair feeling the scalp for lumps shaped like a chip port. There was a hair band on its head, but when he tried to remove it, it didn't budge. A few gentle tugs indicated that it was integral to the forehead. He stopped pulling at it and started to reach into his pocket for a screw driver.

At that point the band seemed to detach from the head on its own. With a slight whir, the band slid forward revealing what appeared to be an old fashioned optical drive inside. Wolfe leaned forward for a look. There didn't appear to be a disk or any other data media inside. Before he had time to think about it, the deck slid closed again. He waited for a bit but nothing else happened.

Interested, he vowed to start on the droid first once he got everything back to the lab. He then turned his attention to the big multiport brains. These things were designed to operate complex operations like factories and power plants, massive computing power but very weak AI. They were designed to be portable by general labor drones and were pretty heavy and awkward for the average human to handle. Wolfe was in the middle of struggling one onto a flat warehouse cart when he almost jumped out of his skin.

"Sir?"

Wolfe dropped the brain he was loading, jumped upright and spun toward the voice. The droid was standing there staring at him, upright, eyes open and fully mobile. His mind flashed back to the day they lost Marvin, and suddenly he wished he was the type to wear a sidearm. He instinctively stepped back and his ankles collided with the low cart causing him to rather suddenly sit on it. With his eyes always on the red haired android, he clambered to the other side and stood again, with the cart between them.

"What" he was stuttering "What. You got up. What do you want?"

She raised one hand and pointed at the brain he had been struggling with. "I can help you with that Sir".

He found himself at a loss for words, and for the space of a few minutes there was silence, awkward on his part, seemingly expectant on hers. Finally he held up his hand and said "Just one minute" as he backed up to a comm on the wall. He punched up the code for the lab and then there was a beep, followed by Gurvitz voice.

"Tech lab, Gurvitz, t6"

"Guru, it's Wolfe. Listen, that droid? It just got up and started walking around".

"Really? What's it doing?"

"Well, not much right now, but I'm kind of spooked. Just get here and back me up would ya? Bring some heat"

"Hang tight, I'm on my way"

The comm went silent and Wolfe just stared back at the droid in silence. She stared back at him in a rather serene fashion. He noted that now its irises were now a normal size, with white showing around them. When the sound of running feet came down the hall, Wolfe's relief was visible in the set of his shoulders.

Gurvitz trotted into the room holding a shotgun that looked like it was more suited to hunting goose on the wing than it was for indoor combat. Tech squad did not get its pick of weaponry. He pointed it at the droid, and without taking his eyes off of her he spoke to Wolfe.

"Okay, what's it done so far?"

Wolfe suddenly felt slightly embarrassed. "It, uh, it offered to help me with the loading".

Gurvitz glanced back at him with a creased forehead and the ghost of a sneer. "Are you kidding?"

"Listen Gil, you weren't here when Marvin got it. It was horrible. I'm playing it safe here."

Gurvitz looked back to the android, standing still and expressionless. "Okay, what do you want?"

"I want to help" it replied in a voice almost as void of expression as its face. "There are many tasks that I am capable of performing. Please request my assistance at any time".

Now Gurvitz visibly relaxed a bit. He stepped forward until the barrel of the shotgun was touching the droid's torso. With a sudden shove he knocked it down. She ended up sitting on her butt with her hands on the ground behind her. Wolfe felt an emotional shift. The object of his fear suddenly seemed like the victim of a schoolyard bully, and he had a twinge of annoyance at Gurvitz, despite the fact that he was only here because Wolfe had gotten nervous in the first place.

Gurvitz turned to face him, the shotgun held loose in one hand now. "Lobo, get this back to the lab for repro, and for crap's sake, try to chill a little will ya?" He tossed the shotgun to Wolfe. "Just in case". Gurvitz turned and left the way he came in while Wolfe stood holding the shotgun as if it smelled foul.

"Sir?" The droid was still sitting. "May I get up?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

She rose to her feet in a surprisingly graceful fashion. He supposed he had been expecting something more...robotic. She dusted and smoothed her clothing, then spoke once more, "I can help you with that Sir" Once again pointing at the heavy case, now lying on its side next to the cart.

"Yeah, go ahead" he repeated.

She walked delicately over to it and easily lifted it onto the cart. Gurvitz had knocked her over easily enough, but she was pretty damned strong. She looked at him again.

"Would you like the rest of them loaded Sir?"

"Uh yeah but, ah, you can't keep calling me sir. I'm in the military, and that term is only used for officers".

She began loading the cart while she spoke." I can address you in any way you would like. What is your preference?"

"Uh, my name is Wolfe. Stephen Wolfe. I'm a tech specialist level 5."

She put down a box and faced him. "I am glad to meet you Tech specialist level 5 Stephen Wolfe. My name is Dorothy". She reached down and touched the sides of her dress with her fingers while crossing one foot in front of the other and bending her knees while bowing slightly forward.

"Was that...did you just curtsy?"

"I am sure that is what it is called" she answered "It is a formal greeting and a symbol of respect, if I am correct."

"Yeah, that's correct; it's just that, well nobody does that anymore. Haven't for a long time. You have got to be Japanese."

She didn't reply, she just kept loading the cart. When she was done she asked where he would like it. He told her, and with her pushing the cart and him holding a shotgun, they made their way up the corridor from receiving up to the tech lab.

Fin.


	3. Chapter 3

Familiarity

Wolfe had some of the best equipment available to resistance tech squads, but a lot of it was still outdated. Right now he was looking through a jewelers loupe at the inside Dorothy's data port. At least, he thought it was a data port. It looked like an old optical data drive meant to read a disc with a laser, but he couldn't see a laser, or an old magnetic head. He was somewhat baffled.

The deck behind her hair band was the only external port he could find, though he had not inspected every square inch of her dermis. He told himself that there was plenty of time, and that he could check all that after he had gotten something conclusive from this port. The truth was he found himself a little reluctant to inspect under her clothing. Something about her emotionless manner just got to him somehow. He didn't quite read it as flat or dead, it seemed like 'calm' or 'serene' was a better description. She seemed to have a kind of propriety that would make full frame inspection seem indecent. Anyway, that could wait.

While he was visually inspecting her, he asked a number of questions.

"So Dorothy, you have no knowledge of events prior to your sudden activation here at the base?"

"I have knowledge of things, what things look like and what they are called. I have knowledge of this language; it's called American English, right? But I have no memory of any experiences prior my encounter with you tech specialist level 5 Stephen Wolfe."

"Uh, listen you don't have to say 'tech specialist level 5 Stephen Wolfe' every time you talk to me. Why don't you just shorten it to Wolfe for now?"

"I will do that Wolfe"

"What do you know of your internal systems? Are you capable of running diagnostics? Do you have any protocols for self repair?"

"I don't know about any of that Wolfe. I don't even know what you mean by internal systems."

Wolfe was getting frustrated, both by his fruitless visual inspection and the enigmatic answers he was receiving from her. He glanced at the tools laid out on his bench. Among them was a surgical scalpel he had used on the rubber skin of T-600s that had come through this lab. Looking at it gave him a sense of uneasiness similar to what he experienced when he considered full frame inspection.

"Well, do you know anything about your platform, operating system, chip architecture? How do you even know what governs your behavior? What happens if you malfunction?"

She tilted her head to look up at him. "I am sorry Wolfe; I don't know what most of that means. About my behavior, I only know that I like to help, and that some things aren't right to do."

He began to believe he was over thinking her. She was probably a very simple maid program, designed to clean and do chores. Still, before the war, there were no android robots this advanced. Since the war, the only android robots were Skynet's terminator models, designed to infiltrate and destroy human bases. When Skynet designed a maintenance bot it didn't bother to make it look like a doll or dress it up. They were functional, not elegant.

Wolfe decided to take a break from examining Dorothy and move on to something a little more straightforward. "Okay, Dorothy, you can close up now." The deck slid closed, something she did have control over. She claimed that she only had to decide to open or close it, just like walking. She stood up and smoothed her clothing, a characteristic he had seen her repeat often.

"Dorothy, I want you to start preparing the factory brains for testing. Put them on the bench two at a time, uncover the ports and clean the contacts like I showed you. Once two are prepped, let me know and I'll start the testing."

She nodded, and without another word set about the task he had given her. He thought it odd that she had simply nodded instead of the 'Yes Wolfe' he had expected, but even simple chat programs were designed to change up their mannerisms to avoid being tiresome. He sat in a chair by the mainframe, pulled a keyboard toward him, and began tweaking the test programs for the specific hardware he would be testing.

As usual, within minutes he was engrossed in his work, so he only began to notice the sound in stages. By the time he became consciously aware of it, he wasn't sure how long it had been going on. He stopped and listened. Changes in pitch didn't seem random; in fact it was quite musical, and just loud enough to notice. He spun in his chair. It was coming from…..

"Dorothy".

She looked up from what she was doing at the bench. "Yes Wolfe?"

"What was that? Were you humming a song?"

There was a slight pause before she answered. "Yes, I suppose I was."

"You suppose so? You should know if you did or not! How many songs do you know?"

Again there was a pause, this one a heartbeat longer than the first. "I don't know any. I don't know why I did it." The next pause was more significant. Then, "It would appear that I enjoy music." Expression or not, she seemed somehow as surprised at this as he was. "I will stop if it bothers you Wolfe"

Now the pause was in his court. He wondered if this were just another aspect of the maid persona. He decided that right now, he didn't really care.

"No, go ahead. It doesn't bother me, I was just surprised. Carry on."

He turned back to his keyboard and got to work. After a minute or so, something seemed wrong. He stopped and listened. She wasn't humming now. He spun his chair to look at her, and she glanced from her work. He hadn't said anything when she spoke, "It passed."

He lifted one eyebrow. "It what?"

"Whatever it was that made me want to sing. It passed."

He was surprised at the tiny twinge of disappointment he felt. "Oh. Okay, whatever." He spun his chair back to his keyboard again. He tried to get immersed in his work again, but part of him was still thinking about the song she hummed. Get it together Wolfe, he thought to himself, Dorothy isn't prioritized, but these neural net factory control brains are. You have all the time in the world to figure out Dorothy.

At least, a part of him was beginning to hope so.

Fin


End file.
